Seven and Nine forced to cease fire in battle for rights
post-Beijing

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The eagerly awaited bidding stoush between channels Seven and
Nine over the $130 million Australian broadcasting rights for the
2010 Vancouver Winter and 2012 London Olympic Games has been
postponed indefinitely.

Recent cost-cutting at Channel Nine, which may have tempered the
degree of enthusiasm in bidding for the Games against holders
Channel Seven, is one reason for the delay. The other is a concern
about the timing of possible media ownership changes, which may
occur during a protracted, delicate negotiating period.

The International Olympic Committee has abruptly cancelled a
planned August 8 tender showdown in Lausanne after courting the
broadcasters for the past three months, and issued a statement
saying: "Given recent developments within the Australian media
market, the IOC has decided to reconvene the next steps of the
negotiation process at a later date, as and when it sees fit."

It is the first time the IOC has halted a tender. Until now the
process had been successful, scoring the IOC $US2201 billion
($2918bn) from NBC for the US rights, $US746m ($989m) from EBU for
the European rights and $US153m ($203m) from Bell Globemedia/Rogers
Media for the Canadian rights. A figure of about $130m was floated
for the Australian rights.

IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said there was no urgency to
finalise the rights and the IOC had always said it would adapt to
the different markets to best serve the ideals and interests of the
Olympic movement. "Time is not an issue and we look forward to
continuing our dialogue with the Australian broadcasters at a later
date," she said.

Nine executive Lynton Taylor said his network was still
"interested, very interested" in continuing bidding for the rights,
despite the Packer belt-tightening and recent successes in securing
the seven-year $240m NRL deal and the seven-year $280m Cricket
Australia rights. Nine is still bidding for the hotly contested AFL
rights against a Seven/Ten alliance.

"We judge every project on its potential return and what it can
do for the network, not how much other sports we have picked up,"
Taylor said.

"If we have four or five major projects we can always do a sixth
if it pays for them or there is an advantage for the network."

Both Taylor and Seven executive Ryan Stokes were in Singapore
for the IOC session earlier this month. IOC chief broadcast
negotiator Richard Carrion told the Herald at the time that
only the two networks were interested in bidding, and they would
probably come to the table tied up with a telecommunications
company.

But both Nine and Seven each said it intended to bid on its own
for the entire rights deal - which includes internet, radio, 3G as
well as pay-TV and free-to-air rights - and, if successful, would
then sell on components of the deal. Under the Federal Government's
anti-siphoning legislation, free-to-air rights must be sold
first.

Taylor said he was not surprised by the delay, as it would allow
more extended negotiations.

Seven spokesman Simon Francis said his network, which will
broadcast the Turin Winter Olympics next February and Beijing 2008,
was keen on adding to its broadcast rights. "We understand the
IOC's decision today on the timetable for the negotiation of
television rights beyond the Games in Beijing and will await
notification from the IOC on their rules for engagement for those
negotiations," he said.